72 hours of mayhem: When the capital’s soul was battered

Three days of orchestrated communal violence in the north-eastern part of Delhi have left more than 34 dead, 200 injured in one of the worst riots to hit the capital in several decades. The violence unravelled just as US President Donald Trump was scheduled to visit the country for the first time. It began on February 23, when the women protesting at Jaffarabad called for a road blockade in solidarity with the ‘Bharat Bandh’ called by Bhim Army Chief Chandrasekhar Azad.

No sooner had they reached the main Jaffrabad Metro Station Road and blocked it, a crowd supporting the Citizenship Amendment Act reached the spot and demanded that the protestors vacate the road. Soon after, BJP leader Kapil Mishra warned of violence if the road was not cleared. In a few hours, the area descended into orchestrated chaos.

Young and middle-aged men roamed the streets in north eastern Delhi between Khajuri and Seelampur, armed with baseball bats, metal rods, wooden sticks and shovels. They set shops and vehicles on fire, threatening people and demanding to know if people crossing their paths were Hindus or Muslims. In cases, where the identity was not immediately known at sight, the men thrashed people only to later question whether they were Hindus or Muslims. If they were Muslims, they were beaten up severely.

On the streets, Delhi Police remained mute spectators for most part of the three days. On Monday, as soon as tension escalated near Chand Bagh, Babarpur, Bhajanpura, Jaffrabad and Noor-e-Ilahi, the police stood by and watched as rioters vandalised shops belonging to Muslims on the main road. The police remained unaffected while armed men brandishing rods, bats and guns walked through bylanes hitting people and hooting at them. “The Hindutva goons crying Jai Shri Ram roamed around here, climbed the rooftops of nearby buildings to shoot at us. At least five people from Noor-e-Ilahi, have been taken to the hospital,” said Fahad, a local resident.

On Monday, when Section 144 was in force, with the riot police watching, under the Maujpur flyover, men sporting saffon tilaks gathered to listen to speeches inciting violence against those protesting the implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register. Close by at a Shani Mandir in the same area, both women and men grouped asserting that if the Muslim women had the right to protest the implementation of CAA and NRC, then they had the right to sit in support of the Act. “We are sitting in support of the Act. If they can sit, so can we,” said Jyoti.

By 7 pm, armed men vandalised shops near Maujpur while around 30 police personnel stood a kilometre away near Jaffrabad metro station where the women were sitting in to protest. The elders in the Maujpur locality knew exactly what the armed men were doing as they forcefully guided journalists into the bylanes under the garb of safety.

On Tuesday, until noon, the men armed themselves under the watchful eyes of the Delhi Police. Groups of armed men stood all along the nine-kilometre road with the police standing even further behind them. The men accumulated metal rods, broken bricks and strong wooden sticks in preparation of the rampage that would follow after noon with a few of them chanting ‘Delhi Police zindabad’. Similarly, on Chajjupur-Kabir Nagar road, the police watched as men wearing helmets and brandishing rods gathered around the local temple while sloganeering that they would take matters in their hands. “We will not keep quiet. There was stone pelting on Monday, we will give them the answer to that. Hindus have finally woken up,” said Vijay, a 25-year-old man in the crowd.

At Khajuri around 1 pm, men with pistols in their pockets and metal rods in their hands, burnt vehicles on the highway and broke open Muslim shops on the main road to burn the goods inside. At that point, Delhi Police was nowhere to be seen even though Section 144 was in force.

Near Maujpur Chowk, which is a predominantly Hindu block, the armed crowd pregnant with the possibilities of violence, began to get restive and started marching towards the flyover at around 3 pm. Then Delhi Police lobbed tear gas shells which sent them back into the bylanes. But not for long. They regrouped again and began to throw petrol bombs or Molotov cocktails at shops, schools and homes identified as those owned by Muslims. Again, the police did not stop them, but after 20 minutes, the police came to push them away.

At Bhajanpura as smoke billowed all around, local men burnt shops while they were moving towards Chand Bagh. The police did nothing to control them.

However, in Chand Bagh, a predominantly Muslim locality, the Delhi Police and the Rapid Action Force pelted stones and threw tear gas shells to control the men who had gathered to ward off the oncoming mob.

The violence on Tuesday spread to nearby Shahdara, which also saw the rioters rendering the air with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ slogans in a show of hyper-masculine nationalism, while a crowd cheered on. After a while, the police came to disperse them.

By 5 pm, an eerie calm prevailed on the main roads, but just in an hour, the Hindutva arsonists set on fire vehicles and tyre shops owned by Muslims near Gokalpuri. There were no police personnel to be seen then. Later around 8 pm, around 50 armed men attacked a mosque in Mustafabad where young boys and men were praying. In the ensuing violence, several minors were injured. The men also set on fire nearby jhuggis and shops.

In a pattern which became clear towards the end of the day, it was obvious that the Delhi Police were being lenient with the rioters by allowing them to vandalise and set properties on fire. Then the Delhi Police would arrive to push away the rioters feebly, while the Delhi Fire Department would claim that they were not allowed access to the sites.

Role of the state and Centre in quelling violence

Until the Delhi High Court had intervened, the Delhi Police showed no urgency in taking action against the rioters. The service rules state that the Delhi Police reports to the Union Home Ministry, which is currently headed by Amit Shah. Delhi being a Union Territory, law and order, policing, land and services come under the central government. The responsibility of policing in Delhi rests with the Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, who in turn reports to Shah.

“According to rules, the Delhi Police reports to the Home Ministry now under Amit Shah. The violence broke out when US President Donald Trump was visiting the country. It is an issue of national security as a foreign dignitary was visiting. But instead of controlling it, the violence was allowed to spread. Amit Shah has been a failure in ensuring the security of the Capital. The National Security Advisor, who is supposed to look at mostly external affairs security, has been visiting the affected places. When you have a Home Minister why should the NSA Ajit Doval go to these areas? Amit Shah let the city burn,” underscored Kannan Gopinathan, a former IAS officer attached to the AGMUT cadre.

The guidelines on communal harmony put out by the Home Ministry state that the preventing a communal riot is far more important than containing it. The rules state that the Police Commissioner and senior police officials should visit communally sensitive areas even during periods of normalcy. However, no senior police official was seen on the area except when a DCP-rank officer came on Tuesday to demand that the women sitting under the Jaffarabad metro station move.

The rules state that the composition of the police force especially in the communally sensitive areas should be representative of the social structure in the region so as to ensure its credibility. Here too, the Delhi Police failed as a big majority of those deployed were Hindus.

Medical relief camps should have been constituted in such a manner as to ensure members of all communities were represented. But, there were no medical camps constituted either by the state government or the Centre. Instead, all those who were injured were prevented by armed mobs from reaching nearby hospitals. Thugs had surrounded Al Hind and GTB Hospital where a majority of those who were either injured in the violence or were killed were being brought in.

The rule book states that only police of proven integrity, efficiency, impartiality and non-partisan outlook should be posted. This too was violated as most police officials were lenient towards the Hindu mob, while being brutal with the Muslim protesters and victims.

In the awareness building section of the guidelines, it is stated that ‘catching them young’ must be the philosophy for promoting communal harmony. Literature should be distributed in both private and government schools. The reality on the ground was that boys as young as 15 were seen roaming around brandishing rods and shovels.

Interestingly, the book even has guidelines on what should be done when people disregard the imposition of a curfew and Section 144. The police must arrest potential miscreants, apprehend those indulging in arson and violence. The Delhi Police watched as the rioters vandalised property, listened to hate speeches and looked the other way as mobs roamed around with weapons despite the imposition of curfew and Section 144 in Jaffrabad, Maujpur, Vijay Park, Bhajanpura, Gokalpuri and Khajuri.

In addition to Shah, even Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal did not take any action even as the city burnt for three days. According to service rules, the Delhi CM can request the Union government to make available armed forces to help restore public order. Kejriwal did not do so despite his meeting with the Home Minister on Tuesday.

Several civil rights groups have stated that the Delhi Chief Minister could have set up medical aid camps as suggested in the guidelines, but it was not done. Kejriwal could have set up a help line, ordered emergency rescues, set up safe shelter spaces, escalate reports of violence to the Delhi Police and set up peace committees. Interestingly, Kejriwal escalated to Delhi Police the report of presence of students in front of his house. The students had reached there to submit a charter of demands on the violence in Delhi. Instead, they were met by Delhi Police who used water cannons to disperse them.

Is hope still alive?

Amidst violence that is being perpetrated by the Hindutva mob on Muslims, hope still lingers. This reporter was about to be caught in the tear gas shelling at Bhajanpura when she was immediately taken to a nearby house by one of the men in the crowd. Soon, his sisters and mother came out to reassure the reporter. They did not ask the reporter her name or religion, instead blamed Amit Shah for instigating violence and spreading hatred.

Both Hindu and Muslim residents of Brijpuri organised a peace march to ensure violence stopped outside their locality. Residents of Chand Bagh said that Muslims protected the temples in the area in contrast to what happened to mosques in Ashok Nagar and Mustafabad.

But, it is the common people who suffer the most. A 30-year-old housewife, Suraiya, was cooking dinner at her rented house in Shiv Vihar, when a violent mob broke into her house. Her husband, a driver, was at work when they came. They vandalised her home, beat her up and twisted her arms and legs. She has fractured her arm and leg.

The case of 65-year-old Abbas, a resident of Mustafabad, was even more shocking as he was beaten up by people in uniform. “They attacked me twice. Delhi Police broke into my residence, chanting ‘azaadi chahiye toh azaadi lo’ slogans. After they broke into my house, we had run upstairs and locked the room. The police broke down the door and beat us up again,” said abbas, who is in charge of Farooqia Mosque.